


Withered Between the Pages Two and Three

by orphan_account



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Ghosts, Mentions of Blood, OC insert, OC stopped giving a shit, Other, apathetic, dead people in the very beginning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 01:38:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18022364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Being dead wasn't as dramatic as the movies or books proclaimed. In fact, it was kind of boring. Though I suppose how my being dead came about was dramatic enough. But after that? It was a bit of a letdown, really. But apparently my death was only the beginning...So I'll take the bait. Why not? I had nothing else to do after all.





	1. Prologue: The Heart I Once Had

**000**

So that happened. How disappointing...

The screams the surrounded me as people panicked seemed muted, far away, for all that I was in the middle of this latest mess. Distantly my hearing registered more shots being rattled off and the cries of the wounded and dying. Down the street an explosion rocked the ground I wasn’t even touching anymore.

Well, my body was certainly touching the buckling ground. I was not. Well this remnant of me wasn’t. In fact I was hovering over my collapsed physical form. But it was strange. There were plenty of other dead bodies around, mind you. But I didn’t see other people hovering over their own corpses. Humming, I held up my hand and squinted at the sight of the translucent appendage. I looked down at myself to see that the rest of me matched. And below my ghostly toes lay my corpse. A portion of my skull had been blown clear off from the right temple to the back. The remains of my long hair had come unraveled from the braid I always kept it in. I frowned at how messy everything was now. That had been my favorite tee shirt, now completely ruined from my blood and the blood from the other dead people around me.

It was strange. I didn’t feel the absolute terror or confusion I knew I had been feeling when this had started happening. My observations of my violently disturbed surroundings were clinical. There was nothing but a sort of meaningless annoyance over the state of my corpse and clothing. The last thing I remembered was being eye to barrel with a sawed off shotgun. There had been no time to scream or to feel pain before I was blasted.

It was only a few moments more until the street where I had died had cleared. The survivors had clearly fled and the rampaging fascists who had started this whole thing had moved on from the area as well. In the distance where was more gunfire and explosions. None of that was a concern for me anymore. What did it matter?

I was dead.

With huff, I willed myself to stop hovering over my body and my feet touched down on the bloodied concrete and asphalt. Well touched as much as was possible for a ghost, I suppose. Like, I knew my feet were supposed to be flat on the ground, so they remained flat on the ground. I spun on my heels and started walking. Staying by my dead body wasn’t going to do anything for anyone, so I left it behind. The apathetic cap on my emotions held up as I walked. I stepped on and over rubble and bullet casings and other dead bodies. Perhaps I could have phased through the obstacles in my aimless path, like a proper ghost, but such a thing was not instinctive compared to just moving my feet over things that were in the way. After all, I am very new to this whole being a ghost business.

It was hard to pay attention to the distance I crossed because I no longer could experience fatigue. I certainly didn’t pay attention to the time or the rising and setting of the sun. It was irrelevant. Time is a human construct that no longer could pertain to a dead person. Weeks could have passed. Or months. Or years. I didn’t know. Couldn’t tell. What did it matter?

What did it matter?

**000**

“You know, for someone who is dead, you have been surprisingly difficult to track down,” a light, amused voice said.

Blinking, I turned away from the body of water I had been staring at for a while. Unlike the rivers and lakes and ponds I had managed to… well, walk across, I couldn’t go very far past the shoreline. I think this was the ocean. Didn’t know which ocean though, Pacific or Atlantic. Could have been the Gulf for all I cared. But when I realized that I was being spoken to, I couldn’t help but turn around. However I could only raise my eyebrows at the thing addressing me.

“Let me guess, you’re Death,” I said in a slow drawl.

The cloaked being tilted its head at me. “You’re not surprised, I see,” it replied.

I shrugged. The usual twitches and nervous ticks I once had while living made no appearance as the silence lingered in the air between us. Instead I just stared and waited. Besides the scythe and black cloak gave it away easily. Though those certainly weren’t skeleton hands and I couldn’t see under the hood.

Death sighed, wagging a midnight colored finger at me. “Let’s start again.” It took a moment and then its voice deepened into a suitably ominous tone. “Josephina Cunningham-“

“Jo is fine,” I interrupted. Huh, somehow I got the impression that I was being glared at by Death. I shrugged and waved my hand. “Sorry. Please continue,” I said magnanimously.  

“Josephina Cunningham, you have died-“

“I noticed.”

“STOP INTERRUPTING ME!” Oh, it was starting to sound pissy. How interesting.

“Sorry.” I wasn’t actually sorry.

“I see you’re disinclined with playing along,” Death said, frustration now gone from its voice. Instead it just sounded tired. “I already hate you. 

“Okay.” This was amusing but I didn’t smile. Couldn’t feel the urge.

“I’m here to offer you a job. Before you decide to go off the deep end and become a poltergeist. Or worse, a lemure. Though thankfully you’ve wandered so far away for so long that you won’t become a revenant. You were cremated, which also puts a stop to that path. Cheaper for the state since no one came to claim you.” Death drummed its fingers on what I guessed was its thigh through the cloak since the other hand was wrapped around its scythe’s handle.                                                                                                                                            

“Orphan,” I explained, shrugging at the thought that no one bothered with me beyond cleaning up the mess that radical, ultra-violent group made of my corpse. Also, I had no idea what a lemure was but being worse than a poltergeist sounded a bit no good. And a revenant? Also sounded bad, I guess. “So what’s the job?” I suppose even I had grown bored with wandering. And I couldn’t cross this ocean, sea, whatever.

“You don’t care about what happened?”

“I’m dead. What could I possibly do about any of it?”

“You’re taking this surprisingly well,” Death said.

“Haha, everything’s numb.”

Death reached up to rub at its face? I think it was its face. “Of course.” It paused for a moment, its hand dropping. “No regrets?” It wondered aloud.

“Other than my favorite shirt being ruined and probably all burned up now? Or my hair was wrecked despite having a good hair day for once? No. I lived; I was mercilessly murdered; I went on a walkabout after. Now we’re here.” I waved a hand at the sandy shoreline and the waves behind me. “And I have no idea what day it is nor do I care. It just is.”

“Right…”

“So about that job?”

**000**

**TBC**


	2. Wake up, Dead Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we're stalking someone.
> 
> 000

Skull was being stalked.

He couldn’t see anything but the feeling of eyes staring at him at all hours was unmistakable. Skull was a showman, The World’s Greatest Stuntman, he was used to being stared at all the time. But not like this. This invisible gaze burrowed under his skin. It clawed at his insides. It felt like a tiger lazily contemplating how delicious he could be for dinner.

Skull shrieked and whirled around. “The great Skull-sama isn’t scared of you!” he proclaimed, his finger jabbing at nothing. The shadow he kept seeing out of the corner of his eye had evaporated. The world seemed to pause for a brief moment in disbelief. Then the feeling passed. His fellow pedestrians skirted around him, throwing suspicious gazes at him before hurrying away. Actual children gaped at him before being tugged away by their parents. Beneath the opaque shield of his biker’s helmet and white grease paint makeup, the baby-shaped man flushed in embarrassment. Skull spun on his heel and power-waddled his toddler body down the sidewalk. Nervous sweat beaded at the nape of his neck. His miniaturized animal partner, Oodako, tightened its tentacles around the top of the baby’s helmet, eyes swirling around in a futile attempt to spot the staring person. Skull cursed the fact that his bike was at his safe house in pieces for repair. He had only gone out for a snack, not to be stalked!

The eyes kept watching.

“LEAVE ME ALONE!!” Skull cried, bursting into a sprint. The crowd ahead parted once it realized there was an overly excitable bowling ball of a toddler in biker leather plowing down the pavement surrounded by a strange purple aura. A hotdog cart flew into the air. Dogs, both stray and leashed, feasted. A florist screeched when her daisy display in front of her store met a cruel demise. White petals rained down. A skateboarder accidently slammed into a bus stop shelter in an attempt to dodge. A few skirts flew up, their owners frantically trying to hold the fabric down. It was absolute chaos.

And the stare just kept pace! Skull wordlessly wailed like a siren as he ran. Unseen tears behind the visor of his helmet ran down his round baby cheeks. A couple of Oodako’s tentacles came loose, flailing in the air from the speed Skull was running. Tears also streamed from the corners of its eyes. The shrunken octopus expelled bubbles in distress, leaving behind a trail along with the dust clouds its human partner left.

The strange, seemingly one-sided chase went on for a few hours.

**000**

“That’s the guy I have to follow around?” I asked in bemusement. I had grown bored following the fleeing not-baby. Instead I decided to float over the water of a fountain in what looked to be a designated city green space. A few pigeons were scattered around and on the fountain. “He’s really weird.”

“Yes,” Death said. “Will you pay attention?”

I looked up from my attempt at poking a pigeon. “Hmm? You say something?” The bird took off in a startled flurry of gray feathers and angry cooing. The others followed. One collided with a person’s face. I turned to fully face Death, uninterested in the spectacle of woman vs bird going on behind me.

Death made a frustrated noise. “His name is Kallo and he is important,” it said.

“If you say so,” I said, doing a slow blink in its general direction.

“He is incapable of dying.”

Now that made me pause. I focused on Death, the haze of apathy lifting for a moment. “I beg your pardon?” I asked.

“He cannot die.” Oh, Death sounded quite put-out by this fact. “His internalized Dying Will Flames prevent any fatal injury. Did you not remember what I told you before we came here?”

“About Soul Flames? Well yeah, but you didn’t tell me this guy couldn’t die because of his. So… why am I watching him? You hoping I’ll spook him into a fatal heart attack or something?” I was quickly losing interest in this conversation. Instead I started performing midair somersaults while in a planking pose. It was more entertaining.

“If I could die, you would be the death of me,” Death intoned.

“Cool?” I floated higher just because I could. Could I touch the clouds? Then again I’m a ghost, so maybe not.

The immortal being grabbed my ankle and yanked me down so that I wasn’t floating too high for a proper conversation. “Josephina, listen to me!” Death shook me and I bobbed like a balloon. “You are to follow Kallo and report to me!”

“And what exactly am I supposed to report?” I wasn’t put off in the slightest by its frustration.

“If he’s in contact with one of my avatars that was supposed to be in charge of this dimension!” With one powerful pull, Death yanked me down to the ground. I bounced on my toes.

“And how am I supposed to be able to tell if he is then?” I shoved my hands in my pants pockets and rocked back on my heels. I might have been purposely annoying it.

Death shook its head. “You’ll know.” And that sounded ominous.

“Well, okay then. If you say so.” Huh, I didn’t know I could get itchy. I scratched my ear and nodded my head. “I’ll know it.”

“Are we clear?”

“Yeah, yeah. Follow the weird, undying not-baby. Call you up if he talks to another version of you. Got it.” I started walking in the direction that I could feel the purple fire of the baby-shaped person. “Bye.”

“Do as you are told, Josephina!” Death shouted at my back. I sensed it disappear as I waved my hand in the air as acknowledgement of what it wanted.

Shrugging, I strolled along after the not-a-baby’s purple flames. Though I didn’t need to, I dodged anyone or anything that was in my way. In the distance I could see those Cloud Soul Flames, which was invisible to the living when it wasn’t purposely manifested. It was like a bright beacon to me however. Death had said this person had the strongest flame of this type in this whole world. Interesting enough, I guess. But I had also seen the black leech attached to those flames before Kallo took off running, blurring the flames’ details that I could see.

Was that leech a part of my assignment too?

**000**

**TBC**


End file.
